7 Things Worth Celebrating this Valentine’s Day

Love is defined as a profoundly tender affection for–or devotion to–another person. American culture often cheapens the word to refer to new, exciting romantic “love”, especially around Valentine’s Day.

But where are the greeting cards and boxes of chocolates for people who committo love someone else even when it’s hard and messy and painful?

Where are the bouquets of flowers for people who don’t just feel love or fall into love but really DECIDE to love even through tears and struggle?

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We get to see love like that all the time in the people we work with, and that is what we want to celebrate this Valentine’s week….

Here’s to the woman whose profound devotion to her unborn child makes her pick up the phone and call an adoption agency instead of an abortion clinic.

Celebrating couples who stay together in devotion to each other through the struggles of infertility and pursue adoption because they want to give their profoundly tender affection to a child.

Let’s hear it for the foster parents and orphanage staff members in Colombia who work tirelessly and show profoundly tender affection to the children they care for, preparing those young hearts to receive love from others in the future.

Celebrating our many birthmothers who bravely face the intense journeys of pregnancy, labor, and making an adoption plan because of a profoundly tender affection for their child and a devotion to their child’s future.

Here’s to the beautiful relationships that develop between birthparents and adoptive parents when they realize the profound devotion they all have to the child that brought them together.

Let’s hear it for the orphans who come into families through adoption and open their hearts to love and affection, even when it feels risky.

Cheers to the adoptive families who attend trainings and stay up late reading books to learn how to best show love and express affection to the older child they adopt.

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Now that is profoundly tender affection and devotion.This Valentine’s Day, let’s celebratethis kind of lovethat happens all the time in adoption.